


The Swallow and The Sparrow

by Lunarium



Category: Night of the Swallow - Kate Bush (Song), Original Work
Genre: Androids, Birds, F/F, Femslash, Inspired by Music, Science Fiction, Shapeshifting, interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-06 17:32:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18855736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: Tsubame was about to do it. Suzume will not let her.





	The Swallow and The Sparrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gamerfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/gifts).



“Don’t do this.” 

The hood falls back, and wind billows through short dark hair as Tsubame leans back to regard Suzume.

“Nothing’s gonna stop me!” Tsubame says and turns back to her prize. She places her hand on the muzzle of the jet plane and immediately feels the essence of the machine interface with her own hard drive. The impression on her hand glows electric blue to match her eyes. 

She hears Suzume stomp closer, and her mind’s eye flash with an image of the lithe android storming towards her, eyes glowing amber-red. “If you do this, I will tell—” 

“Who, the law?” Tsubame laughs. 

“We weren’t made to fly.” 

Tsubame scoffs. Suzume was not wrong. _We look like birds but aren’t meant to_ fly, _well_ —

“We can learn.” Tsubame turns around, regarding Suzume with bright eyes. The moonlight basks her in silver light as she stands before Suzume. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going to sit around and be a show-bird while people are dying out there!” 

She raises her hands to display the glow around each hand, having completed interfacing from the jet plane. “I can do this, Suzume.”

“But what if you’re caught?” Suzume says. 

“I’m helping people!” 

“It’s still wrong! You’re _stealing_!” 

“Well, why aren’t our leaders giving food and medicine?” Tsubame says. “They have plenty! I don’t know those people on the news. We don’t even know the first thing about humans, but we know humans are fragile in how they’re designed. They need continual replenishment, and they require maintenance when they break down. There’s plenty of both here and none there right now. What’s so wrong about sharing the capital’s stores?” 

When Suzume didn’t respond, Tsubame marches around her and studies the clear night sky. “I’ll be back before morning.”

One hand at her hip and the other placed under her chin, as if taking position at one of their shows, she takes off as Suzume looks on, and then there’s a gasp—Tsubame grins, feeling her body take on the plumage of the night. Her long arms grow—she flaps her wings, and swift as a bird she’s gone.

⍣

Suzume didn’t tell a soul. Tsubame knew she wouldn’t, but Suzume was determined to prove her wrong. And yet she couldn’t say a word, and the mental thought of Tsubame smirking at Suzume’s cold feet infuriated her.

She was worried for Tsubame. Why risk her life crossing vast expanses of turbulent seas in the dead of night when she could be here, resting her head on Suzume’s lap as she’s always done after a show? 

Did she not want to remain lavished in the simplicities of life? They had it so well. Dancing before their audience alone without the familiar blue, black, and white plumage next to her, Suzume was but a graceful form in shades of brown and grey. 

“I wonder how you’re doing,” Suzume said to the pillow she was using as a substitute for Tsubame on her lap. She caressed over its corner. “Are you all right? Did you survive the first mission? Where even _are_ you right now? Managed to stay out of trouble? Did they break your wings yet?” 

There was a way to check on Tsubame, but if she ever found out Suzume will never hear the end of it. But she wanted to be sure Tsubame was okay. 

Sighing, Suzume regarded the pillow at her knee. “You’re really ruining my quiet evening, Tsubame.” Then wearing a small smile, she sat back and slipped deep into her mind, searched for the nearest lamppost, settled atop it, and waited for the first bird before hopping on it. She took to the skies, soaring over the city and the black sea glimmering with the reflected light of city life and the occasional star—miles and miles later till she found one of them and reached, touched, and hopped onto them, and searched before, finally—

She gasped, seeing the world right through Tsubame’s own eyes. The world beyond changed from the dazzling paradise to a grim and dark sea, and then, finally—a grey morning, broken only by the lifting of smiles upon seeing Tsubame’s descent, signaling the arrival of relief. 

Not a single candle! Shops with no lights, broken glass windows, desolated streets filled with unbathed humans—all the signs of the recent disaster. An entire peoples abandoned to the elements while their city lavished in luxuries. 

The humans clambered towards Tsubame, faces lit like sunlight as they took their food, their clean water, their medical supplies. They thanked Tsubame, their gratitude stabbing through Suzume’s heart many miles away. 

And Tsubame was not caught. She returned as she had said, before morning, perched at her corner for the day. By evening she was gone again. 

And still not caught. Not that night. Not the one after. 

Sure, the mystery of the stolen items reached the news, and Suzume wept as if any moment Tsubame’s face would appear on the screen. 

But she didn’t, Suzume kept her secret, and Tsubame’s Robin Hood-esque mission continued.

⍣

“Still in the repair shop?” their boss asks Suzume each time she reports in for their job. She nods and says no more.

Her dances now take on a new life, inspired by the journeys she perceives through Tsubame’s eyes. The hope uplighting around her upon descending, like wings spreading wide at the first cracks of dawn, a rising crescendo of gratitude and faith and love ripple through the land, echoed in the applause following her performance’s coda.

She returns home and follows Tsubame through her mind. 

Oh, to be there! To see the children for herself and feel the gratifying victory. To know she had done something awful, committed a crime, but what a noble crime! What honorable thieves! It was beyond any euphoria after a dance, after any approval for a dance well performed. This was something more, something her own vocabulary could not quite stitch together. 

“Take me with you,” Suzume says under her breath one night, longing for the vast expanse of seas, the humbled ground of the island and the people who needed them, the thrill, to be beside Tsubame. “Let me try this, let me show something, to be so much more than what I’ve been in my life!” 

A flutter came by her window and she glances up, startled to see Tsubame smirking at her. 

“Come, quick!” she says as she threw the window wide open. 

“Tsubame!” Suzume gasps, rushing over to her as Tsubame throws the window open, and then she was taken again by surprise when Tsubame presses their lips together. “Tsubame! You—you know what’s going on in my head!” 

“Of course. Felt a little bird tweeting inside my head the last few nights,” Tsubame says and holds out her hand. “Come on—we’re about to head out for the next round.” 

Her chest—what’s the term humans describe it as? Her body doesn’t have veins nor blood, but it’s a similar feeling, of blood whooshing through her veins, her heart clenching, her chest tightening with anticipation of the thrill. 

This could all end in flames. They could be caught and their wings crushed. But it would be worth it just to see another smile shine.

**Author's Note:**

> Suzume means "Sparrow" in Japanese, and the sparrow symbolizes simplicity, protection, and teamwork/community ([source](https://dreamingandsleeping.com/sparrow-spirit-animal-symbolism-and-meaning/)). Tsubame means "Swallow", and the swallow symbolizes joyfulness, decisiveness, and having hope ([source](https://dreamingandsleeping.com/swallow-bird-spiritual-meaning-and-symbolism/)). The two androids embody qualities as well as the name of the respective bird. 
> 
> Thank you for the prompt! It was a great joy to write!


End file.
